Friday, October 25, 2013

Before the Paris Métro, there was the 'Chemin de fer de Petite Ceinture' or "little belt railway". Its steam engined trains run around the French capital, on tracks built between the city's forts, encircling 19th century Paris.

The railway fell into decline from the 1930's and by 1985 all parts of the 30km (19 miles) line were shut down. The ancient walls through which the trains were running kept the Petite Ceinture isolated and allowed nature to reclaim the space. Recently, a small part of the railway opened as a park, with Parisians debating the fate of the rest of the line.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Hafodunos Hallis a house located near the village of Llangernyw in north Wales. It was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, a prominent Gothic Revival architect and built between 1861 and 1866 for Henry Robertson Sandbach, whose family had bought the estate in 1830. The new house was built to replace a much older hall which had been built in 1674. The site had been occupied since at least 1530 but the remains of both previous houses are untraceable.

The Sandbach family sold Hafodunos in the early 1930s. The building has had different uses since, from being a private girls' school to an old people's home. The nursing home shut down in 1993 as it failed to meet quality standards. In 2004 the largest part of the house was destroyed by a devastating fire, and following that, the whole site was left abandoned. In 2010 the property was bought for £390,000 and the new owners announced their desire to restore the house and use it as a residence.

Friday, October 11, 2013

First inhabited by Greeks during the 6th century AD, Cracowas built 40 km (25 miles) inland and on a very steep summit for defensive reasons. During the following centuries, the town went under feudal control. A university was established in 1276 and by 1561 it had reached a population of 2,590 people.

By 1799, the townspeople overthrew the feudal system and Craco became an independent municipality and later, part of the Kingdom of Italy.

Soon though, the town started facing geological problems. By the beginning of the 20th century, hundreds of inhabidants had emigrated to north America due to poor agricultural conditions. A series of earthquakes and landslides followed in the next decades and in 1963 the entire population of 1,800 residents moved to Craco Peschiera for safety reasons.

Today, the ghost town of Craco is visited by many tourists as well as many old residents who return back to the their hometown for annual religious festivals. The image of Craco has been used over the years in various films as a background setting; Quantum of Solace and The Passion of the Christ, being two of them.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Two and a half years after the devastating Japan earthquake and tsunami, as well as the nuclear disaster that followed, killing 19,000 people and displacing more than 300,000, Reuters photographer Damir Sagolj returned to the region to document the lives of those affected by the tragedy. Even today, tens of thousands of survivors live in temporary housing as the area surrounding the nuclear plant remains too contaminated by radiation for residents to return for more than short visits.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Monumento de Mestizaje was supposed to be a mega monument celebrating the Mestizo culture, built on a small island close to the shore, in the city of Chetumal, Mexico. Chetumal's former governor Joaquin Hendricks Diaz envisioned a massive iron construction, on the scale of Eiffel Tower and millions of pesos were invested. A 60 meter (200 feet) high arch was built but the construction was never finished.

Today, the monument remains unfinished and abandoned on its small island, often visited by tresspassers.